


Chaos And Clothes

by PawnToBishop4 (AbsolutelyNotAlex)



Series: B2/Jason Isbell [2]
Category: The Queen's Gambit (TV)
Genre: 1960s, 1970s, And more bitter than sweet, And not making up, Angst, Canon Compliant, Dialogue Light, F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Moscow (The Queen's Gambit), Short, There are only two lines of dialogue in the whole thing, Unrequited Love, breaking up, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:47:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29337783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbsolutelyNotAlex/pseuds/PawnToBishop4
Summary: When Benny thinks of Beth, the thing that comes to mind most often was the night she’d beaten him at speed chess. The streets of New York were slick with rain, and the sound of falling water joined the usual cacophony that was the background to city life.
Relationships: Beth Harmon/Benny Watts, Harry Beltik/Beth Harmon
Series: B2/Jason Isbell [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153874
Comments: 18
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

When Benny thinks of Beth, the thing that comes to mind most often was the night she’d beaten him at speed chess. The streets of New York were slick with rain, and the sound of falling water joined the usual cacophony that was the background to city life. He’d taken the bet fully expecting to win, as he’d done that night in the student union. But no, she’d cleared out his wallet and managed to make him question everything surrounding his feelings for her as she sat cross-legged on the hard concrete floor and looked up at him from underneath mascara-covered lashes. 

After Russia, he hears that Beth has gone home to Kentucky. He does not call, but he sees her at a few tournaments and they make polite small talk about chess. His disinterest in her personal life is feigned, and he thinks with a pang in his chest that hers may be real. Harry Beltik shows up with her a few times, and Benny wonders about the nature of their relationship with barely concealed jealousy. One day, he no longer has to wonder because she sits down to play him and he sees the ring on her perfectly manicured finger. She wins in twelve moves, and although she extends a hand, he does not shake it. 

Benny likes to think that if she had come back to New York after Moscow, they would have picked up exactly where they left off before Paris, but the cynical part of him knows better, and Beth probably knows better too, which is illustrated by what happens when he finally decides to give her a call. The phone rings and rings with no answer, and before he knows it he’s in his car headed south on interstate ninety-five. 

When he finds Beth’s house in Lexington, he nearly runs up the steps, and after knocking three times a confused-looking middle-aged woman opens the door. Her confusion only grows when he asks after Beth.

“She sold this house to us four months ago.” Says the woman.

Benny asks if she left a forwarding address, and she shakes her head sympathetically. He shuffles back to his car, metaphorical tail between his denim-clad legs. Obviously she has enough sense to know when to let sleeping dogs lie, a skill Benny had always lacked. 

He sees her again at a tournament in Atlanta, waiting in line to check into a hotel with Harry at her side. He leans down and whispers something to her, and she poorly masks a laugh. At that moment, Benny wants to march straight over to Beltik and open-palm slap the man, or maybe break his nose, but she smiles as he grabs her hand and Benny realizes that he’s been replaced. They play, and she wins, as usual. This time she does not extend a hand. 

When he gets back to his apartment, he angrily kicks one of the cushions in the ‘living room,’ and notices something when it shifts. He picks it up, and it’s one of the scarves that Beth used to wear in her hair. He’s torn between holding it and not letting go, or throwing it away. It’s one thing to see her at tournaments now and then; she’s become a different person, someone he doesn’t know anymore, or maybe she was always this person underneath the pills. Now, she doesn’t wear scarves in her hair. But the small piece of silk he holds in his hands is a reminder of the Beth he knew, the Beth that slipped into his life for a month and a week, the Beth he loved. 

And he’d thought loving her was hard then, but being left alone with a silk scarf and the ghost of a woman he’d known once was, without a doubt, much worse. At the US Open in 1971, she forces him into a position he knows there will be no way out of, and he looks her dead in the eyes, making sure she knows he’s talking about more than just chess. 

“I resign.” He says. 

They shake hands, and after that, they don’t speak again. 


	2. Chapter 2

Beth has many memories of her mother, but one in particular sticks out after Moscow, and Benny. 

_ “Remember how I said men would want to teach you things?” Alice asked _

_ “Yeah.” Said Beth. _

_ “You say yes,” corrected Alice, “‘yeah’ is for everyone else. But one day, there might be a man who likes you. And maybe you like him. He might want to teach you things too. And maybe he won’t. You just need to make sure he can handle you. We’re fractals, you and I. The closer you look the more details there are. You can’t simplify yourself, or make yourself smaller, for a man.” _

_ “Is that why Daddy isn’t here?” _

_ Alice nodded. “Your Daddy couldn’t handle me, either.” _

Beth thinks that perhaps she and Benny are both fractals, too complex to ever be compatible, which is maybe why she stops by Harry’s office at the supermarket every time she goes to get groceries, and maybe why she meets him outside the college after his classes are over. It’s not a surprise when he asks her out, and Beth realizes as they sit across from each other at a diner that she’s never been on a proper date before. 

Once, this would have been awkward, as Beth struggled to see through the haze of the pills and the wine, but now it is natural. Harry invites her back to his apartment, and as night falls, they stumble towards the bedroom, pulling off clothes as they go. It is better than the first time, now that Beth knows what it should be like, and she doesn’t pick up a book when they’re done. Harry does not talk about chess, or anything else for that matter, and he does not try to hold her, seemingly sensing her vulnerability. He stays next to her, as close as he can be without touching, like he somehow knows exactly what she needs. After that, she spends more nights at his apartment than at her own house, and while it’s wildly different and mildly less exciting than her time spent in another apartment with a blond-haired cowboy, it is not unpleasant. Harry accompanies her to tournaments sometimes, but no one dares comment on it, even that same cowboy, who she speaks to occasionally; just surface-level conversations about chess, nothing else. 

As with the first time he asked her out outside of the small community college, it is not a surprise when Harry proposes, either. Maybe Beth had wasted her one great love in life with Benny, or maybe there was no such thing, but after spending so much time with a person as she had with Harry, it was easy to grow to love them even if you didn’t in the beginning. Her love for Benny had come suddenly, and left that way. She’d had to earn her love for Harry, but there’s no doubt it’s there when she slips the ring on her finger. The first time she wears it to a tournament, she catches Benny staring at it, and she can tell it throws him off because he should be able to hold his own for longer than twelve moves. He does not shake her hand when she wins. 

Back in Kentucky, she sells Alma’s house to a nice middle-aged couple with two children, and occasionally she sees the wife around town. Once, the woman tells her that a man in a leather coat had been asking after her, and asks if Beth knows the man. Beth tells her not to worry, and spends the rest of the day in a daze. 

At a tournament in Atlanta, Beth is on edge knowing she’ll have to play Benny. Harry seems to sense this, because he whispers a joke in her ear and takes her hand. She smiles in an attempt to reassure him. She wins, again, and this time she does not extend a hand for him to shake before turning her back and walking towards her hotel room. 

At home, life goes on. She stays clean and sober, she goes to the diner with Harry on Friday nights, and occasionally she lectures at the college. Sometimes they make the drive to Townes and Roger’s and the four of them eat dinner together, and sometimes she visits Jolene. Harry graduates from college, and things with them are the same as ever. Life with him is not dull, but it is routine. He knows how to talk her down when she’s having cravings, or what to do when she gets a little too vulnerable. He knows how to handle her. 

She does not see Benny again until the US Open, in 1971. She backs him into a corner that even she herself couldn’t get out of if she tried, and the ghost of something long kept buried stirs within her as he looks her in the eyes for the first time in years. When he resigns, she knows that the game is finished. Both the game on the board between them, and whatever the game was they’d been playing in life. It is over. 

Beth extends a hand, which Benny shakes. When she lets go of his hand, she lets that long-buried ghost of a feeling go too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't originally planning to write this, but someone suggested it and before I knew it I had doubled the length of the thing so here you go.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the song Chaos and Clothes, so go have a listen to that if you feel like it. This one was a bit shorter, but I didn't really know what else to add without killing it, so I just let it be. Of course, feel free to share your thoughts and/or constructive criticism in the comments.
> 
> EDIT: Since someone asked for a part two from Beth's perspective, I'm going to make this a multi-chapter fic. I've already started writing it, so it might already be up by the first time you're reading this.


End file.
